MacBook Air = a Mod waiting to happen?
Long time reader... first time poster.
Consider these additions to the MacBook Air:
replace with 7200 rpm drive
replace 2GB of ram for total of 4GB
latter add bluetooth keyboard & mouse, and a 24" monitor.
4 GB memory and the fast hard disk = VMWare fusion and unity, run windows app and mac apps
Not too concerned with the battery... an electrical outlet is never to far away. I had a dell 420 lattitude (12 incher) and never really needed to swap the battery.
1.8 GHZ cpu is sufficient, surprisingly, I never really max it for a any long period.
Portability with the above MODs and you've got one sweet notebook comparable to a daily workstation.
I can take my work home and ditch the 17" behemoth (which comes with a backpack!)
Waiting for someone to open up this laptop up to see if MODs can be made.
Consider these additions to the MacBook Air:
replace with 7200 rpm drive
replace 2GB of ram for total of 4GB
latter add bluetooth keyboard & mouse, and a 24" monitor.
4 GB memory and the fast hard disk = VMWare fusion and unity, run windows app and mac apps
Not too concerned with the battery... an electrical outlet is never to far away. I had a dell 420 lattitude (12 incher) and never really needed to swap the battery.
1.8 GHZ cpu is sufficient, surprisingly, I never really max it for a any long period.
Portability with the above MODs and you've got one sweet notebook comparable to a daily workstation.
I can take my work home and ditch the 17" behemoth (which comes with a backpack!)
Waiting for someone to open up this laptop up to see if MODs can be made.
Comments
Long time reader... first time poster.
Consider these additions to the MacBook Air:
replace with 7200 rpm drive
replace 2GB of ram for total of 4GB
latter add bluetooth keyboard & mouse, and a 24" monitor.
4 GB memory and the fast hard disk = VMWare fusion and unity, run windows app and mac apps
Not too concerned with the battery... an electrical outlet is never to far away. I had a dell 420 lattitude (12 incher) and never really needed to swap the battery.
1.8 GHZ cpu is sufficient, surprisingly, I never really max it for a any long period.
Portability with the above MODs and you've got one sweet notebook comparable to a daily workstation.
I can take my work home and ditch the 17" behemoth (which comes with a backpack!)
Waiting for someone to open up this laptop up to see if MODs can be made.
The answer is no. Sorry.
The answer is no. Sorry.
guessing then its one piece motherboard? If so go ahead and delete my post as it is futile.
Care to elaborate?
The 2 GB of RAM is soldered to the mainboard and there are no empty slots.
There aren't any 7200 RPM, 1.8" drives available.
Your only upgrade options are: a bigger 4200 RPM ATA 1.8" HD (160 Gig drives are available on the market), or a 1.8" SSD drive (available at exhorbitant prices, up to 256 GB).
Your only upgrade options are: a bigger 4200 RPM ATA 1.8" HD (160 Gig drives are available on the market), or a 1.8" SSD drive (available at exhorbitant prices, up to 256 GB).
Yes but aren't the 160Gig drives a bit thicker? I doubt they'd still fit then...
This is a glimpse of the future folks. Much like when Apple released the first imacs without a floppy drive, and people FREAKED. Now look at the imac, and floppies have gone the way of the dinosaur.
Solid state and no optical drives are the future of laptops. We live in a wireless, digital downloadable word, and Apple is trailblazing here. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
It's gonna take time.
That being said, I'm gonna buy the macbook right now. Although I travel ALOT and love the INSANELY unbelievably thin Airbook...the HD is just way too small and pricey. So I don't mind waiting. I'll use a macbook and check back in with the Airbook in a couple of years. I am sure by then they will offer bigger and cheaper SSDs. Its all good. :-)
For others, it will be enough. And I will look with slightly envious eyes at them in airports with the airbook on their laps.
You made some good points, and for the most part, I am with you. I remember when the iMac debuted, and almost everyone I knew were saying things like, "What?!? No FLOPPY DRIVE?!!!!" and now, as you have stated, they are extinct.
However, I do not believe that we are headed down that path as soon as you may be thinking. Yes, iTunes is EXTREMELY POPULAR, and I know that millions of people download all of their music from iTunes and now you can "rent" movies and so on. But there are a couple of things to think about.
Apple has not created or recognized a better technology to replace optical drives, as they did when they dropped the floppy and only used the optical drive. All they have done is set it up so that you can use an OPTICAL DRIVE from ANOTHER COMPUTER. While this is inventive and a good solution for MBAir users, don't think that the optical drive is going away any time soon.
Even if Apple and other companies wanted to start offering media, i.e. movies, via a download service, most users would become frustrated with trying to download an HD Movie in a reasonable amount of time.
The 2 GB of RAM is soldered to the mainboard and there are no empty slots.
The RAM is not as difficult to handle as the hard drive. It looks like that kind of chip in the pictures can be desoldered and replaced with bigger ones. It's still a hard task, probably not worth doing except for the "Everest condition" (people climb it because it's there, not to do anything of value up there), but I think it's possible.
A laptop works fine on a desk but on the move, it's fairly impractical. The Macbook Air still has this limitation.
People are already making pocket tablets like this nokia 810:
http://www.nokia.co.uk/link?cid=PLAIN_TEXT_607323
Technical Specifications
Weight: 226 g
Length: 72 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Display
High-resolution 4.13? WVGA display (800 x 480 pixels) with up to 65,000 colors
Processor
TI OMAP 2420, 400Mhz
Memory
DDR RAM 128MB
Flash 256MB
Storage
Up to 2GB internal memory
Support for compatible miniSD and microSD memory cards (with extender). Supports cards up to 8GB. (SD cards over 2GB must be SDHC compatible.)
Operating Times*
Battery: Nokia Battery BP-4L
Continuous usage (display on, wireless LAN active): up to 4 hours
Music playback: up to 10 hours
Always online time: up to 5 days
Standby time: up to 14 days
Other characteristics
Smooth slide with integrated QWERTY keyboard
Built-in GPS receiver
High quality stereo speakers and sensitive microphone
High-resolution widescreen display
Integrated desk stand
Integrated VGA web camera
HW key to lock touch screen and keys
Ambient light sensor
Connectivity
WLAN standard: IEEE 802.11b/g
Bluetooth specification v.2.0 . +EDR (profiles supported: HID, FTP, DUN, GAP, SPP, HSP, SAP and OPP)
USB high speed for PC connectivity
3.5 mm stereo headphone plug (Nokia AV Connector)
Tablet OS: maemo Linux based OS2008
Easy install for new applications, applets, and personalization
Operating system updates available over the Internet
Web Browsing
Browser based on Mozilla technology with state-of-the-art web standard support including AJAX
Page navigation with scrolling, panning or using hardware buttons, zooming in and out of web sites.
Full desktop Adobe® Flash® 9 plugin, including video and audio streaming
Media
In-built media player for viewing and listening to downloaded, transfered or streamed media content and easy-on-device management of media library
Direct access to shared media over Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)
Supported video formats: 3GP, AVI, WMV, MP4, H263, H.264, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, RV (RealVideo)
Supported audio formats: MP3, WMA, AAC, AMR, AWB, M4A, MP2, RA (RealAudio), WAV
Supported playlist formats: M3U, PLS, ASX, WAX, WVX, WPL
Communications
Internet messaging and calling with video
Effortless and automated presence and contacts application for centralizing communication tasks
SIP support and interoperability with industry standard services
Map
Map application with pre-loaded maps including points of interest
Premium services available on purchase including Wayfinder navigation
E-mail
Browser access to familiar webmail services
E-mail application for personal e-mail usage with IMAP, STMP, and POP3 support
Images
Full-screen image viewing and slideshow functionality
Supported Image formats: BMP, GIF, ICI, JPE, JPEG, PNG, TIF/TIFF, SVG, Tiny, WBMP
RSS Reader
Reader for subscribing, managing and keeping up-to date with web feeds
Support for RSS 1.0/2.0 and Atom 1.0
Utilities
File manager
PDF reader
Clock
Games: chess, blocks, mahjong and marbles
Backup and restore
Input methods
HW keyboard, full screen finger keyboard and on-screen keyboard
This is a different category as it's more of a larger iphone device but the people who actually have laptops that I know simply don't need the portability other than to take between home and work. For actual on the move stuff, the Macbook Air, doesn't really help because you still have to sit somewhere to use it and you simply wouldn't do anything processor intensive on the go so the speed it offers over competitors isn't needed.
Who on earth would need more than 2GB on a travel computer anyway? 2GB is easily enough to run productivity tools.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." Bill Gates
Bill is that you. Welcome to AI.